The thing is that having a walled garden would be ideal, but this is unobtainable at least for now.  Moneyhatting exclusives will cost way more since the sales won't be good.  Same thing with MSFT exclusive developers/games.   So, they have to do purely 3rd party or they would have negative profit.  Microsoft won't get enough of an uptick in sales to justify the exclusives, in whatever form these exclusives may come by.  

You could say the same thing about the PS5 as is, there's not been a ton of exclusives and many games just look like PS4 era games on steroids. 

People will still upgrade, PS5 is selling about the same as the PS4 without much fuss and at a higher price. 

There's no real choice for a lot of those gamers. If you want to play on a TV and don't want the hassle that sometimes comes with PCs, Playstation is basically a bit of a monopoly on the stationary home console market. Most people also have their friends group locked in on the Playstation side (COD, Madden, FIFA, NBA 2K, Fortnite, GTA Online, etc. players). 

Sure maybe they sell 110 million PS6s instead of 120 million PS4s or whatever, but I think they're ok with a little LTD erosion if it means higher software sales revenue. 4-5 million copies of a port like Spider-Man: Miles Morales between PC, XBox, Switch 2 as an example, you could be looking at over $100 million in revenue likely (assuming profit margin in the range of $25/copy or so). 

They will make sure the PS home consoles still get likely a 1 year window of exclusivity for 1st party games minimum probably. So people who are big fans of those IP will likely suck it up and buy a Playstation anyway. 

Why such a definitive statement for a metric as fluid as engagement? 

You do realize SpiderMan 2, Helldivers 2, Astro Bot, MLB, God of War Ragnarok, have all charted on the most played charts for PlayStation platforms, since it has been tracked by NPD in 2023? Death Stranding 2 and Ghost of Yotei will also chart in the most played chart for their launch periods. Are you trying to argue that no PlayStation first party game will chart in engagement metrics again? Not to mention actual first party game sales or their back catalog driving PS+ Premium tiers. How is one month of MAU worth more than all of that? 

And where exactly are you getting the 5B+ figure from? Making up figures is just silly when you want to ignore data that is available. Besides that, MLB alone will generate billions in revenue. Sony also spoke to their shareholders just a few months ago about how they treat multiplatform releases. Lets see what they in their upcoming financial call. Its better than you just pulling fantasy figures and pretending MLB and GT7 don't exist lol. 

Those games charted for a short while except Hell Divers 2 on Steam. The games you see in the link are always at the top. That is why Sony is porting their games to other platforms. They need the money after their recent failures. MLB is a license game so it doesn't make that much money. That is why it is also on Xbox and Switch.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J44BPopMPMs

I think returns on investment is the real reason why multiplatform is happening. The insomniac leak showed that a game like Wolverine was expected to earn 80M in ROI, that is pretty low for a game that takes 6 years to make. The low ROI for Sony is what is driving all this push to port stuff to every platform. When you develop games for 6 years on big budgets you want to earn hundreds of millions in ROI from that investment.

So a random YouTuber is your source? Good to know its unreliable lol. 

Also, you are the one that posted a monthly chart. That was the baseline you established for what's considered popular/most played, and what sells hardware. Can you even access the historical data to your link? And did you just say that MLB doesn't make much money because its a licensed game? Are you serious? 

Yeah I forgot Japan Studio is now dead now for a sec. Such a shame, Puppeteer from them was one of my favourite PS3 games.

Still, who knows, they have studios like Nixxes who can port things. Agreed that Astro Bot would be a good fit for Switch 2, given colourful platformers and the Nintendo base's bread and butter.

For Sony, I don't think a walled garden is ideal anymore. Xbox has lost so much momentum that it's impossible for them to compete with PlayStation ever again. You could put every PS game on Xbox now and I don't think it would change anything. The XBSS is 380$ and XBSX is 550$ so, price alone guarantees any comeback impossible. 

Let's say they also port all their games to Switch 2.  Switch 2 is confirmed to only run Borderlands 4 at 30fps whereas you can practically guarantee it will run on 60 on PS5. Borderlands 4 will be a huge game and I can't see millions of PlayStation owners ditching their PS5's to play Borderlands 4 at 30fps just because Sony has put all their games on Nintendo. 

Sony has such key advantages over their competitors machines to the extent that I don't think there's any downside to having all their games on Xbox or Switch 2. PC is a different market entirely. 

Okay I'm feeling nerdy today...

The 3-4 times budget increase is nonsense. We don't have a comprehensive list of budgets for the last two generations. It's doubtful that development costs increased more than 50% gen on gen between any two similar games. If some of Sony's own games' budget increased more than twice, then this would down to factors like content, scale/length, licensing fees, bloat, and inefficiency. It isn't an inherent industry challenge whatsoever. Budgets are generally increasing yes, but not by the insane and universal rates some people like to throw around. And no, games wouldn't need to sell 3-4 times more to offset a 3-4 times rise in budget.

Assuming God of War (2018) cost $80 million and Ragnarok $200 million:

God of War (2018) sold 22 million~ in over 5 years at an estimated average price of $30 (confirmed average digital price is $28~ as of June 2023)
Ragnarok sold 15 million in 1 year at an estimated average price of $65 (confirmed average digital price is $66~ as of June 2023)

22 x $30 = $660M - $80M (budget) = $580M. Physical sales = $365M~ (63%~ physical ratio) x 0.7 (retailer fees) = $255M + $215M (digital sales) = $470M~
15 x $65 = $975M - $200M (budget) = $775M. Physical sales = $426M~ (55%~ physical ratio) x 0.7 (retailer fees) = $298M + $349M (digital sales) = $647M~

Meaning, Ragnarok made MUCH more profit in a year than God of War 2018 did in over 5 years.

In digital sales alone, we have hard data showing Ragnarok generating more money ($279 million at 4.24 million copies sold) in a few months than God of War 2018 did in 5 years ($229 million at 8.14 million copies sold).

Another interesting case study is Assetto Corsa vs GT Sport vs GT7.

Assetto Corsa sold over 30 million across two games. GT Sport sold over 13 million. And GT7 has 15 million+ on lock with the potential to exceed 20 million. On paper, it sounds like Assetto Corsa has Gran Turismo beaten in popularity, it likely cost less to make and sold more than at least GT Sport! But the elephant in the room is price: IIRC, Assetto Corsa's copy sold averaged at a minuscule $3.5~, GT Sport at $25~, and GT7 is likely still at $55 or $60+. Once you put price into consideration, GT7 is several times more successful than Assetto Corsa. Development cost isn't even worth glancing at when the revenue is an order of magnitude higher.

The short of it is this: As long as demand exists, rising game prices and digital ratios dwarf the rising development costs. The little money Sony makes on PC from singleplayer games isn't going to offset the long term damage done on their consoles.

Being a reseller, or just a 3rd party player, is the low-hanging fruit.  They aren't any different from Steam, and they won't be any different for what MSFT comes out with when it *tries* to expand on its online offerings.  

How is your product different?  What unique things will it offer the consumer?  What advantages does your product have over the competitors?  One of possibly several categories of unique things that the PS6 could offer would be exclusives.  As i mentioned before, the price in MSFT's case would be much higher and they would get much less from this investment.  So, that could be why Microsoft will be moving to a less intense strategy.   

And, all of this is straight marketing theory.  If you dismiss me then i don't know what else to tell you.